Reconciliation with God, Others, and with Nature

THEME:         “Reconciliation with God, Others, and with Nature”

From Harmony to Brokenness

The creation account in the Book of Genesis narrates the plan of God in which all creation was in harmony.  God and man and woman strolled together in the afternoon in the garden, enjoying each other's company.  Nature provided a beautiful and balanced environment and animals were friendly companions.  Until sin entered the equation: the Fall.   Then as we are reminded in Genesis, the harmony characteristic of God's creation experienced a profound rupture.  Man and woman felt a sense of shame and hid from their God and Creator, man and woman began to quarrel, and even their relationship with nature and animal life took another course.  We live in a broken and wounded world.  The harmony in God’s Plan is broken into a million pieces.  No human force could put it back together again!

In other words, when the human being breaks off from God and tries to go it his or her own way, that sin of pride and independence has far-reaching consequences which cut across the wide span of human relationships touching and souring the relationship of man and woman with nature.  Cain kills his brother Abel.  Humans build the Tower of Babel and ravage nature.

This Creation Story tries to understand and make sense out of our human reality as we experience it.  At the basis of our need for reconciliation lies the call to be reconciled with God in the core of our beings in order to be able to build a redeemed and reconciled world.  Christ is the new Adam, the new Person, who once again lives in the proper relationship with His God!"I have come to do the Will of my Father!" is His most often expressed desire.  And it is in living that correct relationship, in harmony with the Father, that Christ completes His Mission of reconciling all humanity and setting us once again on the right track.  Jesus teaches us the truth about ourselves.  He teaches us who we are and what we are called to be!  In following Him and living according to His Spirit, we are able to attain the fullness of life!  Our broken lives can be restored!

St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians writes:

“For he (Christ) is our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh, abolishing the law with its commandments and legal claims, that he might create in himself one person in place of the two, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile both with God, in one body, through the cross, putting that enmity to death by it…Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord…” (2:14-16.21)

Reconciliation in the Truth

Many of us have fallen into the traps set by Satan.  We have accepted his lies as truths.  We believe along with most of humanity today that the truth of our identity lies in success, or in popularity and we strive for that, even in religious life!  The competitiveness which causes so much suffering and injustice in our world, can also creep in and poison our hearts and our relationships in religious life.  Jesus has come to unmask the lie!  Jesus teaches us that the truth of our identity is not found in any of that, but in God's infinite love for us.  When we can recognize and embrace this basic truth about ourselves, we experience a deep healing and freedom.

We began our theme of reconciliation this morning by reflecting on the fundamental truth about ourselves, about our own identity grounded in God’s infinite love.  We need to appropriate this truth in our lives over and over again, if we are to take the next step: that of being agents of God’s reconciliation with others and with nature.

"And for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here.  It is all God's work.  It was God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the work of handing on this reconciliation.  In other words, God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself, not holding men's faults against them, and he has entrusted to us the news that they are reconciled.  So we are ambassadors for Christ; it is as though God were appealing through us, and the appeal that we make in Christ's name is: be reconciled to God."

                                                                              (II Corinthians 5, 17-21)

We are called to be "ambassadors of reconciliation" in our world today, but we will only be able to give peace, if we have attained in our own lives that deep peace and reconciliation in the Blood of Christ.  An important part of this process of personal reconciliation lies in accepting the Truth about ourselves.  There is profound wisdom in Jesus' words when he gives us the two great Commandments:  "Love God and love your neighbor as yourself!"  In order to be ambassadors of peace and reconciliation, we must first find it ourselves, for we will speak from the abundance of our hearts.

Reconciliation with Others

A few years ago the world’s attention was drawn to a small Amish community in Lancaster County, PA, called Nickol Mines.  This time the attention was not on the beautiful farm lands, Amish cooking, or Amish quilts.  A disaster had struck the small community.  On October 2, 2007 five school girls were shot and killed and five others seriously wounded in an Amish school house.  The assassin, Charles Carl Roberts IV then took his own life.

The Amish taught the world a lesson in Christiandiscipleship. Their witness of forgiveness shocked many.  It comes from their simple faith and reading the Scriptures!  Passages such as Matthew 18:21-22, Acts 7:54-60, Colossians 3:13, Ephesians 4:32, and  The Lord’s Prayer are studied and internalized by the Amish from childhood.  All their life they learn about forgiveness and through hymns and stories of their martyrs they prepare themselves for forgiveness.  This is part of their heritage.

Their call to forgiveness stems from the concept of “Uffgevva” which undergirds all of Amish life.  WE GIVE UP YOUR RIGHT TO REVENGE, “submitting to God’s perfect will.”  It doesn’t make forgiving any easier, but as one Amish Farmer put it:  “The acid of hate destroys the container.”(Amish Grace, p. 125)

The authors of the book Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy,  (Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt, and David L. Weaver-Zercher,  Published by Jossey- Bass, 2007) write in the Preface, p. xiv:

 “In telling the Amish story, it is important to distinguish forgiveness from both pardon and reconciliation.  Whereas in forgiveness the victim forgoes the right to vengeance, pardon releases an offender from punishment altogether.  In many cases, pardon can be granted not by the victim but only by a person or institution with disciplinary authority over the offender (such as the judicial system).  Reconciliation is the restoration of a relationship, or the creation of a new one, between the victim and the offender.  Reconciliation is not necessary for forgiveness to take place, and of course it does not always happen, because it requires the establishment of trust between two willing parties.  In many situations, however, reconciliation between victim and offender constitutes the ultimate goal, and forgiveness is a crucial step in that process.”

In the words of the authors one message rings clear regardless of the details of the Nickel Mines story, and that is:  “religion was used not to justify rage and revenge but to inspire goodness, forgiveness, and grace.  And that is the big lesson for the rest of us regardless of our faith or nationality.” (p. 183)

Amish Graceis a challenge to the rest of us, to more fully embody the teachings of Jesus!In a world where religion spawns so much violence and vengeance, the surprising act of Amish forgiveness begs for deeper consideration.

How do we inflict wounds on our sisters and brothers?

In the light of the Nichol Mine tragedy and its aftermath, we can reflect about the brokenness in our own communities and about how we deal with it.We do not normally have to face such dramatic and tragic situations in our lives.  Bullets are not fired and our sisters and brothers are not killed.   Well, not in the same way anyway! 

How do we cause brokenness? How do we wound one another?  A whole day could be spent reflecting on this.  But I would like to focus on one area:  How do we kill and wound one another?  As we know, the tongue can be a powerful weapon in our hands.  With the tongue we can tear another’s life and reputation apart, we can wound and kill a relationship.

A story about criticism.

Almost all of us need to work at broadening our mercy and narrowing our criticism.  We need to tone down the tendency to view and speak about others critically.  Even Christians sometimes forget that Jesus warned his followers to banish critical and judgmental attitudes from their lives.  “Stop judging others,” he said simply and succinctly in the Gospel of Matthew (7:1).  A critical, judgmental spirit is the opposite of a spirit characterized by love and acceptance.  Those who have not learned to curb criticism and suspend judgment create a negative, hostile, and anxious spiritual atmosphere.  Consider the lesson in this story about a Hindu, a rabbi, and a critic.  While traveling separately through the countryside one afternoon, they were caught in an enormous thunderstorm.  They each sought shelter at a nearby farmhouse.

            “The storm will be raging for hours,” the farmer told the three.  “You should plan to stay here through the night.  The problem is, there’s only room enough for two of you.  One of you will have to sleep in the barn.” 

            “Immediately the Hindu volunteered to be the one.  “A little hardship is nothing to me,” he said as he made his way to the barn.

            “A few minutes later there was a knock on the door.  It was the Hindu who apologized, and explained, “There is a cow in the barn.  According to my religion, cows are sacred, and one must not intrude into their space.”

            “This time, the rabbi quickly stepped forward, saying, “Come in.  Make yourself comfortable in the house.  I will be happy to sleep in the barn.”  However, a few minutes later the rabbi returned to the house, saying, “I hate to cause a problem, but there is a pig in the barn.  In my religion, pigs are considered unclean.  I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing my sleeping quarters with a pig.”

            “Finally, the critic said: “Oh, all right.  I’ll go sleep in the barn.”  He quickly made his way there.  A few minutes later, there was a knock at the farmhouse door.  It was the cow and the pig.”

           

Criticism is a common cause of woundedness and brokenness in community life.  But it is but one way that we hurt one another and cause division among ourselves.  (Eastern Wisdom for Western Minds, Victor M. Parachim, Orbis 2007, p. 41-42).

            Being messengers of reconciliation calls us to see the good in the other and to see our differences as blessings and an opportunity for enrichment instead of giving way to envy, to competitiveness, and to criticism.  Let’s stop killing one another, let’s stop killing the dreamers among us!

A Story from the Native American tradition

A five-year-old boy is sent to spend the summer with his grandfather, who is a highly respected tribal elder.  The boy adores his grandfather, observing his every move.  After a few days, the boy notices a pattern in his grandfather’s daily routine.  Every morning at sunrise, his grandfather goes to a small altar in the corner of his home, takes off a necklace, and places it on the altar.  Then he sits in silence for several minutes.  Afterward, he puts the necklace back on and continues with his day.  Every evening, at sunset, he repeats the same ritual.

Finally, the boy’s curiosity prompts him to ask, “Grandfather, why do you do that every day?”

“I’m  taking some time to quiet my spirit and honor our ancestors,” the elder replies.

“But what is on the necklace?” the boy asks.

The grandfather takes off the necklace and shows it to the boy.  On it are the heads of two wolves.

“Grandfather, what do they mean?”

“Well,” the grandfather explains, “inside each of us there are two wolves fighting to control us.  One of them is scared and mean, and has a hunger that can never be filled.  It cares only about itself.  The other is brave and kind, and shares whatever it has with others.  It cares as much about the community as it does for itself.”

Wide-eyed and intrigued, the boy asks one more question: “Grandfather, which wolf will win?”

The elder smiles at his grandson, replying, “Whichever one we feed the most.”

The moral:  When the mind is focused on right thoughts, right actions, right words, right effort, and right understanding, its impact can be enormous.  The opposite is equally true.  A focus on evil, greed, jealousy, and self-interest can have a horrific impact.  Like the tribal elder, we all need to make time to quiet the mind and place our focus on healthy, wholesome thoughts.

We can control the mind.  We can think positively.  We can seek to see the best, not the worst, in others.

(from  Easter Wisdom for Western Minds, Victor M. Parachim, Orbis 2007, p. 37-38)

                     

Reconciliation in Society

Reconciliation in community life is not the only area of reconciliation we need to consider.  The brokenness in our homes and communities is symptomatic of the brokenness in the human family.  Sin has expanded its tentacles into all realms of life.  History is full of examples.  I live very close to the living memory of one dark period: that of Hitler’s Third Reich.

Recently I read a very moving book by Nobel Peace Prize Winner Elie Wiesel, Night(1972).A terrifying record of Elie’s memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man.  The book gives his testimony to what happened in the camps and of his unforgettable message that this horror must never be allowed to happen again. He was a teenage in Sighet, Transylvania, when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald.

“I remember that night, the most horrendous of my life: (January 28, 1945)

“…Eliezer, my son, come here … I want to tell you something … Only to you … Come, don’t leave me alone … Eliezer…”

            I heard his voice, grasped the meaning of his words and the tragic dimension of the moment, yet I did not move.

            It had been his last wish to have me next to him in his agony, at the moment when his soul was tearing itself from his lacerated body – yet I did not let him have his wish.

            I was afraid.

            Afraid of the blows.

            That was why I remained deaf to his cries.

            Instead of sacrificing my miserable life and rushing to his side, taking his hand, reassuring him, showing him that he was not abandoned, that I was near him, that I felt his sorrow, instead of all that, I remained flat on my back, asking God to make my father stop calling my name, to make him stop crying.  So afraid was I to incur the wrath of the SS.

            In fact, my father was no longer conscious.

            Yet his plaintive, harrowing voice went on piercing the silence and calling me, nobody but me.

            “Well?” The SS had flown into a rage and was striking my father on the head: “Be quiet, old man!   Be quiet!”

            My father no longer felt the club’s blows; I did.  And yet I did not react.  I let the SS beat my father, I left him alone in the clutches of death.  Worse: I was angry with him for having been noisy, for having cried, for provoking the wrath of the SS.

            “Eliezer!Eliezer!  Come, don’t leave me alone…”

            His voice had reached me from so far away, from so close.  But I had not moved.

            I shall never forgive myself.

            Nor shall I ever forgive the world for having pushed me against the wall, for having turned me into a stranger, for having awakened in me the basest, most primitive instincts.

            His last word had been my name.  A summons.  And I had not responded.

…

I woke up at dawn on January 29.  On my father’s cot there lay another sick person.  They must have taken him away before daybreak and taken him to the crematorium.  Perhaps he was still breathing…

            No prayers were said over his tomb.  No candle lit in his memory.  His last word had been my name.  He had called out to me and I had not answered. “(pp. 111-112)

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.  We must take sides.  Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim…When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant.  Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must –at that moment—become the center of the universe…

There is so much injustice and suffering crying out for our attention: victims of hunger, of racism and political persecution…Too much blood shed.  This must stop!  When their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours.  Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.  (Night,  p. 118-120)

What a moving story.  A true story,unfortunately, too often repeated in the course of history.  We need to ask ourselves: how could this happen?  We need to stand appalled, yes, but we also need to look into our own lives to see how we might contribute to these kinds of holocausts. 

As Christians and as peoples marked by the Precious Blood of reconciliation, we are called to hear the cries of those who suffer exclusion, persecution, suffering, and even death due to their race, or creed, or sexual orientation.  How do we respond?  Are we indifferent?  Do we choose to ignore?  Do we participate in the sin of racism of prejudice?

We are called to be bridge-builders rather than fence-builders! 

Our Wounded Planet:  “Respect and stewardship of nature”

Another area where our world is fractured and wounded, is in the realm of nature and the environment. 

Once again, we listen to the words of St. Paul:

“Through Him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross.”(Colossians 2:19-20)

Albert Einstein once said: “A human being is a part of a whole…He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest…a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us…Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures.”

The fragmentation which took place and which entered our world with sin is not limited just to our interior lives, to our community living, to social situations, but it also has affected nature.  The many ecological problems we face in our world today, from the stripping of our rain forests to the problem of the oxone layer, are the results of imbalance and the imprudent use of nature by human beings.  In other words, we are not in the proper relationship with nature.  Reconciliation is needed here as well.

A story of Ganesh, the elephant-headed god

We have a lot to learn in the Western world when we speak about compassion.  We immediately think of compassion toward other people.  However, in the East there is an enormous emphasis on the importance of practicing compassion toward all living things, including animals and even the smallest of insects.  Let’s listen to a story:

“One story begins with Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, playing in a garden.  Nearby in the house, his mother, the goddess Parvati, was preparing dinner.  Out of boredom, Ganesh picked up a little kitten, playing with it rather roughly.  She did not enjoy the rough play and hissed at Ganesh, hoping he would stop.  He didn’t listen, but rather continued bouncing, shaking, and finally dropping the kitten, leaving her with a scratch on her face.

            “Ganesh then went inside to see his mother and was shocked to see fresh blood on her face.

            “Mother, who did that to you?” he asked, filled with rage.  “I will teach them a lesson they won’t forget.  No one can hurt you.  I won’t permit it!”

            “But. Son, you gave me this scratch,” she explained gently. 

            “No, I didn’t.  I would never hurt you.”

            “You did not know you were hurting me, my child.  But when you scratched that little kitten, my face was scratched.  Whenever you hurt any part of nature, you harm me and all of nature as well.  Be more careful, my son.”

            Spiritual wisdom from the East reminds us that animals –including insects—are not merely other creatures with human humans happen to share the planet.  They are our companions and teachers and exhibit qualities that humans would do well to imitate. (Eastern Wisdom for Western Minds,” Victor M. Parachin, Orbis 2007, p. 35-36).

Pope Benedicthas been named the “Green Pope” by some since he has on more than one occasion expressed concerns for the stewardship of creation.While in Australia recently for the World Youth Day he commented:

“The world’s natural resources are being squandered in the pursuit of insatiable consumption.”

“Perhaps reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of our earth: erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world’s mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption.”

“Types of “poison” are afflicting the world’s social environment, such as substance abuse, along with the exaltation of violence and sexual degradation, for which he blamed television and the internet.”

“The concerns for nonviolence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity.”

                                       

The Cry of the Earth!

The Cry of the earth is heard only one time explicitly in the Bible: JOB 31:38-40: “If my land has cried out against me till its very furrows complained; if I have eaten its produce without payment and grieved the hearts of its tenants; then let the thistles grow instead of wheat and noxious weeds instead of barley!”   The earth cries because it is misused, violated, because it has been mistreated by an unscrupulous patron and for the purpose of exploiting the farm workers who depend on him. 

We read in Romans 8:19-22:“For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.  We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now.”   Our earth is subjected to cruel and dispassionate abuse at the whim of her inhabitants.  Her skin is festering with wounds.  The house which God made for us and which was seen as very good, is becoming each day less hospitable.  The land belongs to God and, for this reason, belongs to all.  We cannot remain indifferent.  The earth is home for everyone, it is our common table, the place where we are called to share with dignity as equals.  We are “ecologists” not by profession or by political party, but by faith.

Our indigenous brothers and sisters can teach us so much about the proper relationship with mother earth.  In our missions in Guatemala the profound respect the indigenous have for the earth is evident.  One such example are the elaborate ceremonies they have developed before preparing the land for planting.  They first will ask permission of mother earth before they will penetrate her in the planting.  And also, they do not believe that individuals should own the land, since the land is communal.  God gave us the land for all to use.  It should never become a means of exploitation of others.

God created the world and the earth breathed HARMONY and God’s dream was fulfilled!  Everything was in its proper relationship.Sin destroyed this harmony.  The earth was violated and the covenant was broken and is in need of reconciliation.  (The image from Poland of Christ sitting with his head resting on His hand:  “What have they done with my world?”)

Paul's letter to the Ephesians states:

"God has given us the wisdom to understand fully the mystery, the plan he was pleased to decree in Christ, to be carried out in the fullness of time: namely, to bring all things in the heavens and on earth into one under Christ's leadership" (2, 9-10)

Jesus comes to restore nature and bring us back into harmony once again. 

This is an area which we must develop much more in order to discover our mission as peoples marked with the Blood of the Lamb.

Nature restored—harmony refound:  Isaiah 11, 6-9

“Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,

And the leopard shall lie down with the kid;

The calf and the young lion shall browse together,

With a little child to guide them.

The cow and the bear shall be neighbors,

Together their young shall rest;

The lion shall eat hay like the ox.

The baby shall play by the cobra’s den,

And the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.

There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain;

For the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord,

As water covers the sea.”

                                          

In the end, the glory of God consists in that the earth be earth, the tree be tree, fire be fire, and that man/woman be fully persons and that people live together in communion.   No one has the right to abuse nature, persons and things.  Humans can certainly develop but cannot betray.  Instead of fulfilling his role as collaborator with God in the work of creation, man supplants God and in so doing provokes the rebellion of nature tyrannized rather than governed by him.

We are called to respect, care for, and defend NATURE… and all of life! (JP II ,Evangelium Vitae).  We Christians must be the first to raise our voices against pollution, the destruction of the Amazons, and of animal species…the contamination of waters, global warning, reckless use of our resources, etc.

All of nature opens up before us as a place of finding God who calls us to meditation, contemplation, praise. All of this is but a reflection of God’s beauty.  All things have a certain sacredness about them that we must respect.  Meister Eckhart once said: “Every creature is full of God and is a book about God.”

”We find salvation by returning to the unity in which we were created.  Our salvation is merely a re-integration of unity with God and all of creation, a unity which has been fractured by sin, by our living out of our inner brokenness which causes deeper disunity.”  (Gerard Straub in Blind Beggar, p. 101)

Reconciliation is about putting things in their proper relationships, with God, with self, with one another, with nature.   In Relationship to nature, we can say that the person must fulfill his/her mission to

As “lord” to dominate it

As “brother/sister” to care for it

As “worker” to transform it

As “child of God” to contemplate it

As “believer” to transfigure it and loan it his/her voice to praise the Lord.

Sent on Mission: Ambassadors of Reconciliation (“Wounded Healers”)

            We are called to be “ambassadors of reconciliation” (II Corinthians 5:16-21) in our world today, but we will only be able to give peace, if we have attained in our own lives that deep peace and reconciliation in the Blood of Christ.  In order to be ambassadors of peace and reconciliation, we must first find it ourselves, for we will speak from the abundance of our hearts.

We are called to be “ambassadors of reconciliation” not due to our own merits, but precisely because we are weak.  Paul writes in First Corinthians:  “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God.” (1:26-29)

And finally, our weakness and sinfulness daily reminds us “we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.”  And a little further on he continues:  “For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” (II Corinthians 4:7.11)

God sends us forth, as he did Peter, the wounded healer, to be “messengers of reconciliation in the truth” and to help others discover “the gift of the Precious Blood which speaks of the greatest joy of all: knowing that we are loved by God.”

Angels of Peace

At Sonnino, that small mountain town known as the center of banditry and the city saved from destruction thanks to the intercession of St. Gaspar before the Holy Father, there is a plaque on the wall of a small square near our Church, which commemorates the Gaspar’s ministry in that town.  On it Gaspar is called “the angel of peace.”    We beg St. Gaspar to help us to become inflamed with his missionary zeal and to become “angels of peace, ambassadors of reconciliation.”  And we ask St. Maria De Mattias to fill us with charity, God’s love, for our dear neighbor, for our sisters and brothers, for the poor and the needy, and for “brother son” and “sister moon.”  After having found a deep peace in our own hearts, the gift of the Risen Lord, may we share that peace with all those with whom we journey each day.

Edwina Gateley once remarked that “God is the Great Illegal Immigrant,” implying that each person is a SANCTUARY OF THE DIVINE, including the poor and the unacceptable.  All of us are united as in a sacred web of Love….We are all connected, one with all of creation and the Creator.  If one amongst us is diminished, we are all diminished.

As we reflect upon this complex theme of reconciliation, we discover that we are both saints and sinners.  In each of us, there is a little bit of both.  Today is a day to come face to face with how we contribute to the brokenness of our world of relationships and with our natural world and environment.  At the same time, we turn to God, the only one who can put our world back together again.  We ask for the grace of forgiveness and the grace to carry that forgiveness and healing balm of God’s love to the world as God’s ambassadors of reconciliation, to be ourselves “angels of peace!”

Prayer of Reconciliation

Most gracious and compassionate God, we come to you, asking for your healing and reconciling touch.  You call us to be reflections of your love and invite us to share in your forgiveness and peace.  Enlighten us that we might come to know the reconciliation that is needed in our own hearts, as well as in our communities, dioceses and nation strained by conflict.  Give us awareness of the ways we have each contributed to disunity and separation in this world.   Help us be wise enough to claim responsibility for those actions, thoughts and words that divide us from each other.  Make us strong enough to continue to work for reconciliation and peace, no matter what the personal cost.   

As daughters of St. Maria De Mattias and as sons of St. Gaspar, whose spirit calls us to reconciliation through the Blood of your Son, we call on you now, God of all mercy, as we trust in your guiding and sustaining love.  We are one in You.  Help us now to be one with each other and with all of Creation.                                                                                                            Barry Fischer, C.PP.S.

Precious Blood Spirituality and the call of justice

Introduction

The reality of “redemption” evokes many meanings and is explained by many terms: rescue, liberation, salvation, expiation, justification, purification, etc.  The very variety and richness of biblical language in describing the reality of redemption should warn us of the danger of absolutizing any one category or image in attempting to describe the multifaceted and mysterious action of God in the redeeming act of Jesus Christ.

The title of this reflection: “Proclaim Jubilee!” invites us to celebrate the Good News of Jesus Christ: the redemption of the whole person, the restoring of social relationships, the affirmation of covenant bonds.   I will reflect on “Precious Blood Spirituality and the Call to Justice.”  I will reflect more specifically on the call for justice in our lives as women and men committed to live as “people of the new covenant” established in the Blood of Christ.   And I will explore some possible implications for our mission in society and in the church.

Jubilee Justice  (Leviticus 25: 23-55)

The Israelite belonged to a world where to live was to be united with others in a social context either by bonds of family or by covenant relationships.  This web of relationships –king with people, judge with complainants, family with tribe and kinfolk, the community with the resident alien and suffering in their midst and all with the covenant God—constitutes the world in which life is played out.   The Jesuit biblical scholar, John R. Donahue, described biblical justice as “fidelity to the demands of a relationship.”[1]  Justice had to do with the right ordering of relationships whose profound basis was Israel’s covenant with God.  The covenant between God and a people became the symbol of proper relationships.  Seen in this context, biblical justice compromises fidelity to all our covenant relationships: to God, to humans, to the earth.

The Jubilee Year prescribed in the Old Testament was a special time to celebrate God’s presence and sovereignty over all things. Deeply rooted in the covenant commitment, it was a time for restoring the fabric of human relationships and for restoring community. It was a time of reconciliation.  Social unbalances in the agricultural and urban society were corrected. Slaves were freed and monetary debts were canceled.  The lands were to lay fallow and lands which were alienated were restored to their respective owners.  As in today’s world, in the Hebrew society material goods were often accumulated in the hands of the few and because of this unbalance, people were compelled to sell themselves in order to survive, at least physically.  The law of the Jubilee Year denounced this social injustice and sought to correct the evil of accumulation of the sources of production and of wealth by the few privileged ones.  It was an enrichment at the expense of the poor who lacked the necessary means to live.  This unjust extortion and robbery of the poor was often denounced by the prophets.

The context in which I will reflect on Precious Blood Spirituality and Social Justice is therefore the “covenant.” And I would like to focus on the concept of “go’él” as described in Levitucus 25.  The go’él played an important role in the social structure of the Hebrew people and found its meaning within the context of the covenant. 

In the Old Testament Israel, the clan, or we might call it the extended family (the community), was the basis for living together.  It provided the protection for families and individuals, a guarantee of the possession of land, the mainstay of tradition, the defense of identity.  It was the concrete way for the people of that time to embody the love of God in love of neighbor. The clan was a factor of unity and defense of people and families.  One of the most beautiful expressions of the family unity and obligations towards one another is found in the law of Go’él.  In the case of illness, plagues, poor harvests or other disasters, families and individuals were helped by the go’él.  He was the protector and defender of the clan, at a time in history when the family ceased to be a place of welcome and sharing, and became instead an object of exclusion and marginalization of the weakest. The go’él would be a brother, a paternal uncle, the brother-in-law, or some other blood relative.  It was always an act of family solidarity that which grounded the right of rescue.  For the Israelites to defend the clan was the same as defending the Covenant. This concept of the go’él was later to be applied to the Kings in the service of their people as we see in Psalm 72, 12-14: “For he shall rescue the poor man when he cries out, and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.  He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor; the lives of the poor he shall save.  From fraud and violence he shall redeem them, and precious shall their blood be in his sight.”  The King “saves” the lives of the poor and frees them from oppression and violence. 

And the concept of go’él was also applied to Yaveh as seen in  Proverbs 23, 10-11: “Remove not the ancient landmark, nor invade the fields of orphans; For their redeemer is strong; he will defend their cause against you.”  And again in Jeremiah 50, 34: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Oppressed are the men of Israel, and with them the men of Judah; All their captors hold them fast and refuse to let them go.  Strong is their avenger, whose name is the Lord of hosts; He will defend their cause with success, and give rest to the earth, but unrest to those who live in Babylon.   Here Yaveh is called go’él in so far as he is the protector of the weak before a powerful adversary.  We also can read in this light Isaiah, chapter 63, vv. 1-6, Yaveh is depicted here as the warrior coming back from battle with his own garments stained in blood, as he avenged the injustices against his people.  “Their blood spurted on my garments; all my apparel I stained.  For the day of vengeance was in my heart, my year for redeeming was at hand.”(v. 4) 

The religious foundation for these social laws is found in the concept that material goods, according to divine order, are given equally for all peoples.  The land, in particular, is recognized as God’s property.  It is an inalienable good that no one can take away especially since it was entrusted to the Israelites as a result of the covenant.  Therefore, an impoverished Israelite forced to sell was faced with three possibilities (Leviticus 25:24-28): reacquisition of the family land in the name of the poor man by a relative acting as a go’él; reacquisition by the poor man himself on the occasion of later good fortune; or reversion at the time of the jubilee.

In all that has been said, redemption is, therefore, an act of solidarity with a view to restoring those caught in misery and slavery, or, in a word, in social marginalization from the community of men and women endowed with rights.

Jesus, as Go’él

As time passed this concept of go’él was projected into the Hebrews’ notion of the Messiah as the one who would come to defend and to rescue the poor and the downtrodden and to liberate the people.  And eventually, Jesus is seen in this light.  One of the oldest titles which the first Christians used to interpret the service which Jesus gave to His people, was that of defender (Go’él), that is, savior, redeemer, liberator, advocate, close relative, elder brother.  He is the first born, who takes on the defense and deliverance of the members of his family.  He was the close relative who came to help his brothers and sisters so that they might live once again in harmony.  He came to restore community living in the way that God intended it when he called the slaves from Egypt and formed them into a Covenant people.

At the center of Jesus’ preaching and ministry was the Reign of God. It was a message he announced for all.  He does not exclude anyone.  But he proclaims it from the perspective of the marginalized.  He receives as brother and sister all those who are despised by religion and government: women, children and the sick, prostitutes and sinners, pagans and Samaritans, lepers and possessed, publicans and soldiers and the poor, the people of the land, the powerless. Jesus clearly placed himself on the side of the little ones.  He became their voice and their defense.  He reached out to them and expressed through his words and actions God’s love and compassion.  He taught that God is a God who loves all peoples and that the circle of God’s love excludes no one. He redefines the list of Table Fellowship by stating that all would have a place at the Banquet Table in God’s Reign.  Everyone is invited to the Feast!  He defended the cause of the poor and the marginalized and tried to raise the consciousness of religious and civil leaders as to their obligations toward them.  He puts his life on the line for their defense and is eventually killed for his commitment to them.  And when Jesus speaks of the Last Judgment, he tells us that we will not be judged by how many times we have gone to Church, or if we had said our prayers, but by our attitude towards the poor and the downtrodden of society.  He could not be any clearer than in the words of Matthew 25:31-46.

Clearly Jesus positions himself as the great go’él of the poor and needy.  And He calls all of his disciples to continue his mission.  We too are called to promote the communion of the table where no one is excluded.   We are to care for the sick and the needy, cure the lepers and expel demons. With these attitudes, as disciples of Jesus, we are called to testify to the values of sharing, table fellowship, and hospitality.  The main objective of our mission is to witness to a new way of living together.  We are to live in such a way that our communities and our society be an expression of the Covenant.

Our Mission as Go’éls:   to be “guardians of the Covenant”

Our world has strayed far from the notion of biblical covenant.  We live in a society of rampant individualism.  As the free market economy makes a firm foothold in societies around the world,  the traditional family values often give way to the individualistic and egoistic race towards acquiring more and more riches and material possessions.  Consequently, family, sharing, hospitality, and community all suffer. There is a new kind of bonding going on.  It is the bonding to the false god of consumerism and material goods.  When people worship these false gods, then the bonds that connect us to one another in community also break down.  In this type of society, some people and nations become richer and richer, while the majority grow poorer and poorer and are increasingly marginalized.

The situation of the Old Testament repeats itself.  Who will be the voice of the voiceless?  Who will defend the weakest members of society?  Who will raise their voice to protest the injustices and the inequalities of society today?  Who will defend the rights of the excluded ones?  Who will raise the consciousness of the peoples of the world towards the plight of the poor and the downtrodden?  “Am I my brother’s and sister’s keeper?”  Our answer is a definitive and resonating, “YES!”

As persons who live and minister under the banner of the Blood of Christ, we are called to witness to, to promote and to defend fidelity to all the relationships and responsibilities that stem from our covenant with God in Christ.  We will work towards that new order of things in which all peoples find a home in a covenant community!  We could describe our mission as that of being guardians and keepers of the Covenant!

The Cry of the Blood

I was particularly moved by the Papal Encyclical of John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae.  In no. 25, the Pope speaks of how the blood of Abel continues to cry from the earth today (cf. Genesis 4,10), in aborted children, in those who suffer persecution for their faith, in the victims of genocide and oppressive political systems, in those who suffer from malnutrition and starvation and in all those who suffer marginalization due to gender, creed, race, or economic conditions.  Indeed the culture of death takes on many faces.  The blood of so many innocent ones today is a continuation of Christ’s Passion being lived out in today’s world.  Their blood cries out, awaiting a response.  The Pope  points to the Precious Blood as God’s response to the cry of Abel’s blood: “to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood which speaks more eloquently than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24).  Then he goes on to make a passionate plea for all Christians to make the blood of today’s victims heard and to respond in compassionate solidarity. 

The “cry of the blood” is a soul-piercing appeal that conveys what God expects of us: a justice that reflects God’s own fidelity and special care for the helpless and hopeless.

In the appeal of the Holy Father I feel a call to our own Congregations which bear the name of the Precious Blood, to be “the voice of the victims of oppression and suffering”, to be the eyes and the ears for our Church and for society, raising the consciousness of all peoples to the cry of the blood which shouts from our often blood-stained earth.   The Holy Father calls all Christians to this mission, but aren’t we being called in a special way?  As religious congregations in the Church we are expected to enrich and to contribute to the mission of the Church from our particular identity as peoples of the Precious Blood!  We are being called to be a living voice of the Blood of Christ, which cries from the earth in the blood of those who suffer today!

We are a people called to live and witness to the new covenant sealed in the Blood of the Redeemer.  It is a covenant which speaks of the bonding of all peoples into the one family in which everyone will have a place at the Banquet Table.  We are called to begin building that Reign here and now.  All around us we can hear the cry of the blood of the excluded ones, of those who are left out or who are pushed out of society, left to die on the margins, in misery and in hunger, and in isolation.  Part of our mission as men and women of the Precious Blood, of the Blood of the New Covenant, is to make the cry of the poor and marginalized heard and to work towards their integration into the social fabric of society. Or in the words of Blessed Maria de Mattias, we are committed to working towards and furthering in our world,  “that beautiful order of things which the great Son of God came to establish in his blood.”

We have seen that the celebration of the Jubilee Year in the Old Testament was lived in the context of the covenant bond.  It seems appropriate to me that we, as peoples of the new covenant who celebrate this Jubilee Year, be seen as “guardians of the covenant.”  Thus, we call the Church and society to celebrate this special time in solidarity with the poor and the disenfranchised of our world.  We must avoid the temptation to transform this year into a merely “personal, spiritual experience”, detached from our covenant commitment with the poor and needy.  We must avoid transforming this year into a spectacular exhibition of a triumphant Church. Would not the most proper way to celebrate be to respond to the call to be go’éls in our world and in our church today?  We willingly take up our mission as go’éls, guardians and defenders of the covenant bond, so that the less fortunate are not marginalized and that they recuperate their proper place within the covenant community.

Many today are left out of the fabric of society.  The cry of their blood is like the cry of the blood of Abel that shouts to heaven.  As Families of the Precious Blood we hear in their cry a call to mission.  Questions such as “Where do we hear the cry of the blood in our particular situation or context?” and “How can we respond to that cry in our ministries?” become questions which help us to focus on our mission from the perspective of our Precious Blood identity, that is, as men and women of the New Covenant!

In whatever society we are living, the “cry of the blood” can be heard!  Where can the cries of the crucified Christ be heard today?  Who are the poor who cry out to us in our time? [2]

·         the voice of women who wish to open spaces where they can rescue their dignity, their equality, their work, and their bodies, becoming subjects of their own life and history and contributing to the construction of a more just society and a more just Church of sisters and brothers of God in Jesus Christ. 

·         the voices of diverse ethnic groups who search to maintain their identity while finding their rightful place in society, struggling to find a home in a society which is often unwelcoming.

·         the voice of the indigenous and native peoples who wish to have land, to participate in the fabric of society, in education, in cultural identity, and who claim the right to live their own spirituality.  

·         the voice of the homeless who roam our streets and sleep in our parks and public places and who numbered four million in 1995 in a country which prides itself on being among the richest and most just of the world!

·         the voice of the elderly considered by many “useless” and so discarded and marginalized.

·         the voice of children who are often the victims of poverty and of violence and abuse.

·         the voice of the Aids-afflicted.

An integral part of our mission today is to hear their cry and to make the voice of their blood heard in today’s society which would much rather ignore it or wish it away!  For to hear the “cry of the blood” is indeed unsettling!  It disturbs our peace and challenges our comfort and securities!   Just as the cry of the blood of Abel moved God to compassion and intervention to liberate humankind from all that oppresses, so too are we called to take a stance.  Ultimately, the cry of the blood of Abel is what led to the shedding of Christ’s Blood in response!  We who hear the cry of the blood are called to respond to that cry with the Blood of Christ, a blood which speaks of Covenant, of Cross, and of Reconciliation!

The concrete circumstances  differ from one place to another and in one culture to another, but wherever we find ourselves, and in whatever ministry we are involved in, the cry of the blood rises up from the very earth we tread! 

Our identity and our mission are centered in that cry and in our response to it.  The cry of the blood crosses over the boundaries and involves us all.  As Congregations under the banner of the Precious Blood, we are united in our common discernment, a discernment which helps us to discover the Call of the Blood and which challenges us to a creative response in fidelity to our covenant spirituality.  In doing so, we will be assuming the role of go’éls in our world today, keeping before humanity God’s vision for humankind.  It is a vision of inclusiveness.  It is a vision of communion and participation in which all have a place.

There is a saying in English that “a chain is no stronger than its weakest link.”  As we reflect today on our covenant commitment, we might also say, “the strength of our covenant bond can be measured by the depth of our commitment to the weak and the marginalized.”  It is the “touchstone” or  proof of our commitment to social justice.  We are to be on the side of the victims from whose standpoint we can express our disagreement with the present social order which is often fractured, unreconciled, and unjust.  We walk in solidarity with them and share their suffering and their cause.  It is a solidarity born from our deep sense of brotherhood and sisterhood in the blood covenant!

As peoples of the Precious Blood we must avoid falling into the same situation as the rich Epulon who didn't see the poor man Lazarus sitting at his door (Lk 16:19-31).  We cannot be so occupied about saving ourselves, about our internal congregational issues, that we do not see Lazarus sitting at our door, or we do not see the blood shed today which cries from the earth. Proverb 21:13 reminds us that “If you shut your ears to the cry of the poor, you yourself will call and not be heard.”  Once when discussing the need “to see and to hear the cry of the blood”, a young man shared his experience in a big city.  He was getting off a busy subway train and he saw that on the platform was a puddle of blood.  He watched appalled as one person after another rushed through the door to exit and would step into the blood without even noticing it and would leave the footprints of blood all along the platform.  What a poignant and graphic symbol of the blindness we often experience in our daily lives!

Recognizing our Sins

This will truly be a Jubilee Year, a “year of grace” (Luke 4:16-21) in the biblical sense described above only if we recommitment ourselves to promote biblical justice. We need to sincerely renew our commitment to the “option for the poor and the marginalized.”  In my understanding, this stands at the center of our call as peoples of the Blood of Christ, called to walk in solidarity with the poor and suffering and to make their cause our own.  We are called to be their voice, the voice of the voiceless, and the conscience of the rich and the powerful, of the comfortable and the indifferent!  We are called to make the discarded of the world, the cornerstones and center of our mission!

We have often failed in this mission.  We need to ask pardon for our past sins and omissions and we also need to take concrete steps to live more effectively our commitment.  Only then will the celebration of the Jubilee Year be a true “time of grace” and year of conversion!  The Holy Father took an important step a few weeks ago in asking forgiveness in the name of the Church for different wrongs committed throughout our history.  It is a beginning.  The need for us as Family of the Precious Blood to ask forgiveness as well came home to me last year when I was in Lima, Peru for an international symposium on Precious Blood Spirituality and Reconciliation.  While there I was interviewed by a young lady from a catholic radio station. I was asked about the Symposium, about our Congregation which was sponsoring it, and about the meaning of reconciliation. Her last question was the most difficult and I hesitated to answer. She asked me: "If you as a Congregation had to ask pardon for something, for what would it be?"

Her straightforward question led me to much reflection.   Yes, we have to beg pardon for so many things. As religious congregations in the Church under the banner of the Precious Blood, we need to ask pardon:

·       For our complicity: for our silence and at times our indifference ... because we are so busy rushing to arrive at the Temple while we pass by on the wayside the living Temples of God who look at us and hope for a response to their cry, an answer which is often not received.

·         For our blindness: because we are too busy in the construction of monuments to ourselves and in the protection of our institutions and congregational structures that we have not seen Lazarus seated at the gate of the safe enclaves of our religious houses. Pardon, because instead of dismantling walls to become closer to and part of the People of God, we continue building more walls to protect us and to enclose us.

·         Pardon because fear has often paralyzed us and kept us from responding: fear of losing our privileges, our positions of honor, our benefactors and especially our securities which could be endangered when taking a more prophetic stance with those who continue to shed their blood.

·         Pardon because we are often more concerned about our internal affairs, because we worry more about strengthening fraternal community within the Church, than in working for the construction of a society which would be a more faithful expression of the Reign of God which we are called to build.

·         Pardon for our indifference as we watch nature being destroyed and abused, and as the indigenous are robbed of their lands, thus becoming accomplices to their loss of identity, and silent witnesses to their extinction.

·         Pardon for those who have died in electric chairs, in front of firing squads or by “more humane and civilized” methods of execution, such as by lethal injections, because we have remained silent and have not raised a strong voice against capital punishment as legalized murder.

·         Pardon because we have not raised our voices with force and clarity to seek the elimination of the foreign debt for the poor nations, debts which annually condemn millions of innocent people to death by starvation, by slowly strangling the life out of those most in need, while creating more marginalization and exclusion in the process.

·         Pardon because we preach justice and decry injustices while not always treating our own workers and employees justly.

·         Pardon because we fret so about filling positions and plugging holes in our pastoral commitments, that we kill the dreams of those who want to respond to the cry of Abel’s blood, which awaits new and creative responses. Though we speak of renewal and of fidelity to our charism and to the "signs of the times," when the moment arrives we are tempted to take the line of least resistance, that of maintaining what is established and what is proven.  In so doing, we slam shut the door to new responses.

·         And, finally, we ask pardon for not being faithful to our reason for being: to apply the merits of the Precious Blood!  Pardon because we have not known how to be effective instruments of salvation which touch the very real lives of persons, because we have remained principally spiritualizers, disembodied, in the realm of the sacred, as if a human person were not holy, a living temple of God, as if the blood which runs through his or her veins were not precious!

Yes, we have to make a "mea culpa," as individuals and as institutions, as Families of the Precious Blood and as Church.  Not only once, but every day. Our examine of conscience at the end of every day could well be:  "Where have I heard the cry of the spilt blood of my brothers and sisters today?  And how have I responded to their cry?"

Willing to Pay the Price

When we look at the life of Jesus, we see a man who was impassioned with a vision.  He was driven by a Dream.   It is called “the Reign of God”.  It inspired his actions and filled his words with passion and his deeds with compassion.   The pursuit of that dream of a fraternal, just and inclusive world, in which all are called into the circle of God’s boundless love, is what led Jesus to His death.  He paid the price for making that dream a reality.  The price Christ paid to establish the New Covenant was his Blood, his very life poured out!  Cardinal Suenens once said:  “Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them true.”

Quite aware of the price to be paid for realizing God’s dream, Jesus asked James and John, who were bickering over the first places in the Reign of God, if they could “drink from the Cup from which He would drink?”  (Cf. Mark 10:38)   We must ask ourselves that same question.  If we wish to be faithful to our call to be people of the covenant and wish to witness to it with our lives and in our ministries, we also must pay the price!

Last week we celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the assassination of Bishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador.  He was a man who underwent a deep and painful process of personal conversion to the poor.  He eventually paid the price with his own blood for his commitment to their cause.

I am sure all of us present here are familiar with the name of Bishop Juan Gerardi, former auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Guatemala City who headed the Committee which investigated the violence and violations of human rights during the long, thirty-seven year old civil strife in Guatemala.  He presented the findings of the Committee’s research on a Friday evening at a live press conference in the Capital City. The conclusions were published in four volumes and entitled NEVER AGAIN.  The cover of the books speaks a thousand words. Every volume had on its title page a youth with a naked torso and with wings made of human bones, representing the thousands who died violently during those years. On the first  page the young man’s eyes are covered by his hands; on the second, his mouth is likewise covered; on the third, his hands cover his ears.  The cover itself made a strong statement:  that for a long thirty-seven years the truth about the facts of violence in Guatemala was silenced and covered up. The last title page shows the same youth, this time with his hands cupped around his mouth, shouting the truth!  Just forty-eight hours after concluding this press conference, Bishop Gerardi was brutally assassinated in the garage of his house. His  assassins crushed his skull with a cement block as he was getting out of the car.  They gouged out his eyes, crushed his ears and his mouth with their weapon of death, in a clear message in response to the cover of the book I just described:  the Church should not see, nor hear, nor speak, but be silent!  This was the warning.  But we know we cannot remain silent!

To be prophets of the Reign of God is to announce in words and deeds the New Covenant with its demands of justice and of love, of peace, of freedom, and of reconciliation.  We have a mission which becomes a passion which burns within us: that of shouting to the world from our own experience that communion in diversity is possible, that in covenant community all are welcome, respected, valued, and loved.  This is God’s Dream!  This is the Dream of the New Covenant!  And this love knows no frontiers.  We direct our message to everyone, but the excluded ones are the privileged receivers, as we fulfill our mission as guardians of the Covenant..

A renewed commitment

But we have to do more than ask forgiveness and to strike our breasts in a sincere "mea culpa.” We have to take another step in renewing our commitment to be “guardians, defenders, and promoters of the covenant bond.”  We are called to come into a new relationship with the people we are defending.  We have to go on to the fourth title page of the book "NEVER AGAIN:" to make heard the voice of the blood of Abel and to respond with concrete actions.

It has been said that “for the great majority of people, we Christians will be the only bible that they will ever read."  I think that our first commitment has to begin with the testimony of our own lives: personal, communitarian, and institutional lives.

·         We want to commit ourselves to forming communities which really are such: communities of trust where all can tell their stories, dream their dreams out loud, where there is dialogue in an environment of respect and fraternal love, where the cultural differences are considered sources of enrichment and not of competition, where no one feels culturally superior to anyone. These will be "evangelizing" communities, prophetic ones which announce with their own life testimony the values of the God’s Reign. In this way we will be able to speak with the authority of Jesus, authority not created by some status or by positions of prestige or of power, but by the authenticity of our lives at the service of God’s project.

·         We want to commit ourselves to create missionary communities which look to the outside, instead of staring at ourselves in the mirror or gazing at our own navels. Communities truly engaged in concrete actions which seek to integrate into the human community, both civil and eclesial, those marginalized and rejected by neo-liberal economic programs, those who are thrown to the garbage heaps of the world as unclean and useless. These become for us and for our communities the cornerstone in the construction of God's Project. We seek to form communities which have the tender and compassionately penetrating look of Christ which goes deeper than external appearances, deeper than the color of the skin and of titles and which knows how to discover and stimulate the presence of God in every man and woman.  Communities in which every person feels valued for being what they are, namely sons and daughters of God, Temples of the Spirit.

·         We strive to form communities which are welcoming and hospitable. We open our arms to receive and invite into communion those who are distant and marginalized. Our arms open up like the mouth of a chalice in which we collect the blood of Abel,  as well as the Blood of our redemption,  affirming in the New Covenant the intrinsic value of every person and the hope of a new world.

·         We commit ourselves to be contemplatives in action, in which we discern together in prayer and dialogue the cries of Abel’s blood which we discover in our world, as well as our response to those cries.

·         We pledge to be the voice of those without voice so that their plight and suffering be heard in our church and in society, denouncing injustices, raising consciousness, and calling peoples of good will to collaborative action to remedy the injustices and to create a more just society and a more just church!

·         And we commit ourselves to our own ongoing conversion as we strive to eliminate every form of racism, cultural superiority, sexism, and prejudice from our own lives, since they are often the cause of the injustices we decry.

·         We commit ourselves to be inclusive in our love, both in word and in mission, creating true “covenant communities.”  And we commit ourselves to promoting the “covenant bond” in all of our apostolic commitments wherever we are.  These “covenant communities” will stand out as a concrete witness to “that new order of things” founded in the inclusive love of God, and will be an invaluable means of evangelization.

We need to open the doors to Christ!  We need to renew our commitment to open the doors of:

·         Our eyes, in order to see the blood which stains our countryside and city streets;

·         Our ears, to hear the cry of the blood and the call of the Precious Blood;

·         Our hearts, to feel compassion and to walk with and cry with those who are suffering,

·         Our mouths, to denounce injustices, to raise consciousness, and to announce a new order of things and to be the conscience of a society which has fallen dormant.

·         Our hands, in solidarity to collaborate in the construction of a more just society and church.

This is the conversion that we are called to embrace as we journey in solidarity with those who are left out of the circle of life.

Concluding Remarks

Every day during our symposium in Lima, Peru we celebrated the Eucharist in the beautiful Church of San Borja. On the front wall behind the alter we contemplated the vision of the New Jerusalem and at the back the stained glass window of the Paschal Lamb, immolated, but standing. These scenes make us think of the words of the Book of Revelation and of the image of the thousands of men and women who pass in front of the Lamb singing hymns of victory!  They represent that multitude of men and women, infants, children, youth and the aged who had maintained their faith and had overcome suffering and violence and who had whitened their vestments in the Blood of the Innocent Lamb.  And we prayed that we ourselves might one day be counted among them, because we have walked with them in their struggles, because we have heard the cry of their blood and we abandoned our securities and comforts to offer them the Precious Blood which inspires hope while on our journey of compassion.

May those same poor and helpless, the very victims of violence and of injustices be our guides.  May they be the key to interpreting history and to re­discovering the Good News of the Gospel. May they be those who help us incarnate the spirituality of the Blood in the diversity of circumstances, places and cultures. May the poor of this world be those who help us re-found our Congregations in a creative fidelity to our Founder.

Our willingness to be guided by the poor and to be attentive to their cries is that which will help us to rediscover our identity and our contribution to the mission of the Church: that is, to construct the Reign of universal familyhood inclusive of all.  For it will be with them, with the poor, with the marginalized and with the victims of violence in society and in the Church that we can contribute to the construction of "that new order of things which Christ came to establish with his Precious Blood."

In order to give credible witness to that new order, we need to undertake a journey of conversion, as the redeeming Blood purifies and reconciles us of all that obstructs living faithfully in the bond that we profess.  The God of the covenant provides nourishment for our journey. When we gather around the Eucharistic Table to break bread and to drink from a common cup, we strengthen our covenant bond with God and with one another.  We renew our commitment to one another and we accept with joy the mission of being “go’éls”, guardians and defenders of the covenant, furthering authentic community and covenant bonding in a fragmented society.  We are sent forth to “proclaim jubilee”, bringing God’s justice to the wronged, effecting peace among the unreconciled, and serving the needs of the poor.

The God of the Scriptures is a covenant God who clearly heard the cry of the poor and the oppressed. God knew what was “hurting” them.  Moved to compassion and called to solidarity by the cry of their blood, God gave the ultimate, loving response in the person of Jesus, the Redeemer and Go’él. 

Yesterday I told you the story of two Russian peasants, Ivan and Peter.  There are many Ivans in our world today.  Weary of so many words and declarations of love, they look into our eyes and ask us that critical question: Do you know what hurts me?  Do you hear my cry?   The question hangs in the air and an anxious Ivan awaits our response.  What will it be?

Questions for Reflection

1.      What is the cry of the blood that I hear in my everyday ministry and how am I responding to that cry as a missionary of the Blood of Christ?

2.      How are we walking in a bond of solidarity with the poor and marginalized in our congregation?

3.      What do we need to ask forgiveness for?

4.      What, in concrete, shall we do to enter into a new relationship?

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[1] John R. Donahue, S.J., “ Biblical Perspectives on Justice,” in The Faith That Does Justice: Examining the Christian Sources for Social Change, ed. John C. Haughey, S.J.  Woodstock Studies 2; New York: Paulist, 1977, p. 68-112)

[2] Catherine M. Harmer, The Compassionate Community, Strategies that work for the Third Millennium, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York, 1998